“Anti-democratic Agents, Detractors”-CSO Comes In Korkoya’s Defense

The Consortium of Civil Society Network of Liberia has described as anti-democratic agents and detractors those accusing the Chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Cllr. Jerome Korkoya, of holding US citizenship. The group’s comments were contained in a press statement issued yesterday, April 20, 2017 in Monrovia.

The watchdog group said “after launching a preliminary investigation into this situation for almost a week now, we have found out that those accusing Chairman Jerome Korkoya of being a citizen of the US are yet to prove their claim more genuinely”. According to the consortium, they believe that “from a rational context, this is a broad-day scheme to distract the progress of our democracy and freeze our upcoming and historic election.” “We have ascertained verifiable facts that those pursuing such a fruitless agenda to undermine the workings of the National Elections Commission under Chairman Korkoya are nothing more than anti-democratic agents and detractors,” the group maintained. The head of the group, Mr. Amos B. S. Kanneh pointed that these “anti-democratic agents and detractors” would do anything to oppose Chairman Korkoya simply because he and his team of commissioners are resolute and uncompromising about enforcing every provision of our electoral and statutory laws. “It is disappointing and detrimental to our democracy for anyone to pursue Chairman Korkoya solely because he is doing what is right and legally prudent. Though we may have different political interest, but our individual interest must never obstruct the smooth operation of our democratic process. This is unacceptable and must be condemned,” Mr. Kanneh stressed.The Chairman of the Consortium intimated that his group is “quite aware that dual citizenship contravenes our Alien and Naturalization Law and as civil society organizations, we will do everything to ensure this law is protected, but what we are against is witch-hunting, smear campaign and mere propaganda intended to undermine the statutory responsibility of the National Elections Commission (NEC).”He continued: “about four years now, we have followed NEC under the chairmanship of Commissioner Korkoya and we have come to appreciate the level of improvement and hard work demonstrated through patriotism by this commissioner especially in the midst of limited resources. Mr. Kanneh added that under Chairman Korkoya’s leadership, “our country has had four successful elections now, which includes 3 bye-elections and 1 senatorial midterm election. And all through these elections, the citizenship, independence and ability of chairman Korkoya has never been challenged by those accusing him today.”